Inspirational Sunday: Whatever Life!
Monday, 25 August 2008
Ashley Qualls is a real life Cinderella. No, she didn’t go to the prom with glass slippers. Instead her fairy godmothers, Google Adsense and other advertisers, transformed her life from just another teen living with her divorced mom and a sister in a one-bedroom apartment to a millionaire web entrepreneur.
It all started when Ashley bought a domain for $8.00 and used it to do what she loved most as a 14-year old, doodle with MySpace layouts and gave it away to her online buddies in her website, whateverlife.com. Soon, droves of visitors went to her site for the free layouts, up to a million a day.
With that amount of visitors, the site attracted advertisers in droves and soon the checks came in. First it was $2,700, then $5,000. Now, she is easily making a million every year from WhateverLife.
It was nearly year ago when we first stumbled into her story and asked ourselves if a girl could make millions off the web then what’s stopping us from earning a few extra money online. What could have made Ashley succeed where a host of others have failed? These are the traits we believed that made her a super entrepreneur:
- Discipline. She’s a straight-A student before she dropped out to fully manage her business. Intelligence may get us an A but only discipline can make it consistent.
- Frugality. Even when she became a certified millionaire with the promise of a lot more money to come, she still refused to indulge herself.
- Hard worker. Last year, whateverlife.com already have 3,000 designs, a third of which was made by ashley herself.
- Patience. Her mother didn’t believe she can make money online at first but Ashley was confident she can but knows it will take some time and effort.
- Business acumen. She’s a teen and she knows what other teens on MySpace wants. She simply gave it to them.
- She loves what she’s doing. She wasn’t making any money at first but at least she was having fun.
We hope Ashley’s success story will also inspire others. Making money online is not easy and quick but it is possible.
Source: Teen Millionaire.
No. 1 — August 25th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Inspirational? This makes me want to kill myself when I see people less than half my age -in a flash of luck- succeeding. Bitterness? Jealousy? You bet!
Lots of people exhibit those same 5 traits, and more, and still fail. Take me for example.
I had quite the head start on Ashley when it came to graphics design and website building, yet I have not made any money from it, much less millions. I have put ALOT of work into what I did, but it has not translated into dollars no matter how hard I tried and worked. I cant stand success stories like these. Honestly, I WISH I could pump my fist in the air, and say something like “Yeah! Good for you Ashley!”, but I cant. If my life was any good, if I was content, if I had some money in the bank, if I had a decent roof over my head, if I had a good satisfying life, I could. But I cant.
When you’re a failure in life, when no matter how long and hard you work, how hard you try, you’re still living in poverty, you’re still living a lousy life, when you’re a COMPLETE AND TOTAL LOSER, its hard, very hard, to read success stories like Ashley’s and not have thoughts of putting a gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger.
Damn it, I had quite a few years head start ahead of Ashley (more than half her young lifetime), and out of the blue she starts her own website, and just a scant few months later begins collecting checks worth thousands of dollars month after month. As I understand it, she now earns more money in one month than I have in the past ten years (and probably will in the next ten).
Where was I a few years back when Ashley got started at 14? I was working in an office building as a janitor, scrubbing toilets and urinals (among other equally disgusting and degrading janitorial duties), for not much above minimum wage. Where am I now? I lost that job, and am on food stamps. All the while, I tried (God knows I’ve TRIED!) to make just a few bucks at the very least over the internet, but it all came to nothing.
When I think of all the hours, all the years of hard labor I’ve done over the years….I’m crawling underneath someones desk to get at a piece of debris that I can’t reach with my vacuum cleaner, or mopping up after an overflowed toilet, etc, and trying to keep my head above water financially while at the same time some teenaged girl somewhere is earning more in one week then I will see all year (and buying herself a HOUSE too), just by working at her computer, it makes me sick to my stomach. Though dont get me wrong. I dont think that Ashley shouldnt have her success. I just wish that kind of success would come to me just once in my life.
Have you ever seen the Mel Brooks 1968 comedy movie “The Producers” starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder? In that movie Mostel is a once successful Broadway Producer (Max), now a complete failure who romances little old ladies in order to trick them into investing their money in his failing plays. Gene Wilder is his accountant (Leo Bloom) who finds that Max raised more money, two thousand dollars, than it actually cost to produce his latest failure of a play. This amuses Leo who points out that under certain circumstances someone could make more money with a flop than a hit. The problem is that its completely illegal. (Raise a million dollars to produce a play, that in reality only costs around 60 thousand dollars to produce. Make sure that the play is a flop. It closes on opening night, making the investors think that since it was a one night flop, there are no profits to go around, and they lost their investment. The Producer keeps the remainder of the money in his pocket, 940 thousand dollars) Naturally, needing someone to juggle the books for him, Max tries to enlist Leo in this scheme. But at first Leo, being an honest man, is hesitant. So it takes a while for Max to convince Leo to be his partner. Max is talking to Leo:
Leo: But if we’re caught, we’ll go to prison.
Max: You dont think you’re in prison now? Living in a gray little room, going to a gray little job, leading a gray little life?
Leo: You know what? You’re right. I’m a nothing. I spend my life counting other people’s money. People I’m smarter than. Better than! Where’s my share? Where’s Leo Bloom’s share? I want…I want everything I’ve ever seen in the movies!
Now, I don’t claim to be smarter than or better than Ashley, but considering all the years of hard work I’ve put into graphics and website design, (among many other internet enterprises), and having nothing, not a cent, to show for it, I feel exactly like Leo when he cries out: “WHERE’S MY SHARE???? WHERE’S LEO BLOOM’S SHARE????”
I sure would like to know the answer to that question.
No. 2 — August 25th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Dude, I’ve made $50 in the last month off the internet. Its impossible not to make even $1.00 unless your EXTREMELY sucky at doing graphics and coding. Just do freelance jobs and get a life dude.
No. 3 — August 25th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
“I’ve made $50 in the last month off the internet. Its impossible not to make even $1.00 unless your EXTREMELY sucky at doing graphics and coding.”
50 bucks a month is nothing. I’ve made more than that selling junk on ebay. (But not enough to earn a living on). I’m talking about trying to earn a living.
And telling others to “get a life” is so cliche.
No. 4 — August 25th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
By the way, I’ve done freelance jobs, but they dont exactly lead to riches. Not even enough, again, to earn a living off of. Way too much competition in this field. There was less competition about ten years ago or so. Now, there is every tom dick and harry, all self taught, doing it.
No. 5 — August 25th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Ahem, guys.
The post is supposed to be an inspiration for succeeding not for, you know…:)
@ John
We wish we could say we know how you feel without being presumptuous. We are old enough to be Ashley’s parents and life was never easy on us too.
And we’re not talking about not having fancy cars or a grand home. We’re talking a hard life, like barely 3 decent meals a day and getting kicked out of our home and almost living on the streets.
We’re talking about getting our hands dirty and hawking wares on the street to make ends meet. But we never consider ourselves as failures. What we lack in material wealth was more than made up for by friends and respect.
That’s why we can’t help but be awed and inspired by somebody who made it, like Ashley. Especially somebody like her who was just a regular girl, like us being regular folks.
We are even in awe of you, because if you are a web designer, then you have something we don’t have and wanted.
If there’s book outlining sure-fire online success from point A to Z, we’d be the first in line to buy it.
We agree with you though, working for somebody else won’t bring in real money. That’s why we didn’t last 2 months doing articles for somebody else.
Might as well build our own sites and have fun trying to make extra cash online.
BTW, we’ll keep an eye open for “The Producers” but we did see “In Pursuit of Happiness,” twice.
Thanks for taking the time to comment here. Once of the longest and with the most feeling RMO had. Much appreciated.
@ Teen
You already have a backlink to an undeveloped domain.
Hope your having fun doing business online. We know somebody who goes by the username TeenBlogger, any relations? 
No. 6 — August 25th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
“because if you are a web designer”
Well, I wouldnt exactly call myself that. As I’m not a professional. Like Ashley Qualls, I am self taught in graphics and web design. (I’m much better at graphics than at website design)
No. 7 — August 25th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
“BTW, we’ll keep an eye open for “The Producers” but we did see “In Pursuit of Happiness,” twice”
Ah, I saw In Pursuit of Happiness, only once. But I also read the book (before I saw the movie it was based on). The movie is good, but the book is better. Be sure to see The Producers. I’m surprised you havent seen it. Its such the classic comedy. I thought everybody had seen it by now.
No. 8 — August 26th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
This is a great inspirational story. I haven’t heard about Ashley’s story before. I’m glad that I just did.
Although in my opinion, such a Cinderella story is not really easy to achieve. That’s why it’s a Cinderella.
PinoyCopywriters last blog post..The Michael Phelps Way to Becoming a Good Copywriter
No. 9 — August 26th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
a great stroy.I haven’t heard about Ashley’s story, too.
No. 10 — September 13th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Hello…
Thanks everybody!
@ John
Now, We’ll really be keeping our eyes peeled for “the producers.”
No. 11 — January 21st, 2009 at 5:10 pm
“United we stand divided we fall”
A nice inspiring story. Everybody has a talent, only few find what they are good at and come up successfully. We work hard for happiness. Lets be happy for what we work.
Akshob
http://www.p2w2.com/akshob
No. 12 — February 17th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
I think that sometimes there is also a great deal of luck and chance, but too often goes by the business vision, to know what others want to.
try a lot of people ..an only few can win money online.. and not because do better things. . is as for example the music, only few can be someone with the music, and not necessarily because they are best than others